Melissa Bianco

This is who I am: a follower of Christ, a game developer, a dreamer, a surprisingly active lazy person, a surprisingly lazy active person, a gamer, a foodie, and an imperfect woman attempting to write words worth reading.

Life, as I see it, is a roller-coaster. Ups, downs, wild turns, laughs, screams, fear, joys, excitement, and all too soon the ride is over. Luckily, all the best rides are reserved for Heaven.

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Church

So, I volunteer at my church on Tuesdays to help with cooking. It’s funny that I’d volunteer for this because I don’t particularly like cooking. I do, however, love to talk and that’s what we do while we’re cooking so it works out beautifully. Actually, that’s not true. I like cooking, just not on a schedule. Only when I’m “in the mood”. Oddly enough, doing it for a cause makes it fun. Who knew?

Anyway, so this kitchen has utensils and such, but they’re donated and things get misplaced or disappear or fall apart. Ultimately, a bit of a mish-mash of stuff. So I decided, after a quick conversation with a fellow volunteer about how awesome ceramic knives are, to go out and buy some knives so I could take one with me. That way, I always had the right tool for the job. Seriously, cutting vegetables with a boning knife does not work.My husband and I went to Sears and I picked up these super awesome colour- coded knives.

Red is for meat.

Green is for vegetables.

Yellow is for poultry.

Blue is for fish.

Is that not the best???

Get it? Water is blue, and fish swim in water, and so it’s like this whole mental connection to the colour. Brilliant!!!!!

I joke, but seriously, I was really excited about this. To know me is to understand that little things like colour-coded knives, like flannel or bubble wrap, make my day.

Awwwweeeeesoommmmeeee!

Okay, so somewhere along the line of falling in love with the pricelessness of the color-coding, I somehow neglected to notice that they’re not actually ceramic. They’re stainless steel. But they’re colourful!

Anyway, moving on. So one of the other issues in the kitchen was that the gloves were a “one size fits all” kind of deal, and anyone who has shrimpy hands like I do, knows that one size truly does not fit all. On the first day helping out, I lopped off the tip of my glove. I may as well have been wearing mittens. So I decided to pick some up. How hard can it be to find food prep gloves?

Uhm, well, apparently pretty hard. We went to two stores and everything was this One Size Fits All conspiracy.

So I hopped onto Amazon, spent about 45 minutes researching, and found some really awesome gloves that are not latex, fit like a – I’m gonna say it – glove, and can be found in size small. AND…they’re purple. Who doesn’t love to rock the purple when you’re preparing food? Amirite?!

Okay, for the record, none of this has anything to do with the title of the post. I just wanted to set the stage.

I’m running late and I knew I’d be bringing my knife with me and a set of gloves. So I threw the gloves in a ziploc bag (why, I don’t know, to keep them together?) and tossed the knife (okay, I didn’t “toss” it, I placed it carefully, sharp side down) in my purse. I pranced to the car, high on my own brilliance at finding the perfect glove, and made my way to church.

About fifteen minutes into the drive, I hit bumper-to-bumper traffic. Ugh. Always the same spot, too. Anyway, I’m just rocking out to my iTunes and staring at the vanity license plate in front of me, trying to figure out the wordplay, when a Police Officer on a motorcycle pulls up beside me and looks over.

And then it kind of dawns on me that I have surgical gloves and a brilliant red knife jutting out of my purse.

I know I’m heading to church to chop vegetables, but he doesn’t know that. I start to freak out a little, wondering what he’s thinking. Does he think I’m off to hack up someone and dispose of a body? Is he going to pull me over? Am I going to end up on the evening news? Is there a law against carrying a knife in your purse?

You know how someone says things like, “Don’t look” or “Be cool” to you and your natural instinct is to do the opposite? I start freaking out. In trying to be oh-so laissez-faire about the whole thing, I just looked guilty. Luckily, the police officer just glanced, ignored me (and my obvious distress), and scooched through traffic between lanes off into the wild blue yonder.